Apple Pan Dowdy

 

It was the most lovely week teaching again at the old school. First off, the sense that I am so far from done teaching kids, as evidenced by all the new ideas for classes or variations of old ideas. Here I was playing Old King Glory with the 4-year olds, a game I’ve played more than any other for almost 50 years, and I spontaneously came up with a new variation that was fabulous. Same with variations of the Tic Tac Toe game, alongside the pleasure of teaching a completely new piece to 7^th graders (as noted before, Anitra’s Dance) and coming up with new variations of activities that fit together in my 3^rd grade classes. I made up a new blues riff to fold into the 8^th grade Blue Rondo a La Turk and new combinations of familiar body percussion patterns with 6^th grade. All clear signs from the universe that I’m not only still in the game but also moving upwards approaching my peak. 

 

Secondly, was the grand pleasure of teaching kids so well prepared to play, sing and dance, with great energy, enthusiasm, musicality, fearlessness and dance skills, thanks both to the ongoing stellar work of colleagues James and Sofia and those 50 years of energy behind the next day’s class. Besides the musical pleasure, it was so satisfying to re-connect with the Middle School kids I had taught when they were 3, 5 and 7, to meet new kids as if we were old friends, to feel the preschoolers I had just met greeting me boisterously after three days when I walked down the hall.

 

But there was more. That sense of continuity that is so rare, the 101 combined years of teaching that my wife Karen (42 years), daughter Talia (14 years) and I (45 years) have enjoyed at the school. This is the place were both my daughters went for 11 years each, where two of my nephews went for 3 and 7 years, and where so many teacher colleagues and parents became lifelong friends. A place where a remarkable array of remarkable human beings came to see what we were doing and left uplifted and impressed— Bobby McFerrin, Milt Jackson, Stefon Harris, Herlin Riley, Melba Beals and Minnie Jean Trickey (of the Little Rock Nine), Tibetan monks, Baka pygmies, Bulgarian bands, Aztec dancers and many, many more. A place where three inspired Orff teachers (James, Sofia and myself) shared their work together for some 25-30 years, attracting another Who’s Who list of famous Orff teachers from around the world. 

 

The school now has eight teachers who were all students I taught and all of them doing inspired work, keeping the thread of school tradition still woven firmly into the cloth while adding new colors and textures. Indeed, there was an Elementary School Town Meeting that was so impressive in the way it made clear to the young ones at their level what it means to be a good community member, a good friend, a good student, a good human being. In its 58^th year, the school could have easily gone off the rails of its original vision and lost its character and believe me, there were times when it was close. But now all seems back on track and evolving yet further down the line. 

 

Today was Grandparent’s Day and after spending the week teaching the grandchildren of various beloved teacher colleagues and the children of various beloved alum students, many of them came back to witness the Blue Rondo and other performances and I got to sit in on my daughter’s class, so impressed and proud at what she shared with the grandparents and how. 

I am fully aware that adding all these things together— and many other qualities and stories that would take many more paragraphs to tell— is not normal. In a world of constant chaotic and random change, of the current trend of going backwards into de-volving, in setting up obstacles to human growth and communion and happiness, this is indeed an oasis in a life-threatening desert. The hot lunch program that is still going has one weird twist where there are always dates put out and perhaps it’s a subconscious way to remind us of the date palm tree in that desert oasis. 

 

And speaking of food, James and I sang the old jazz song Shoo Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy and then James told the story about how a student named Carter came back the day after we sang that song so many years ago and presented us with Shoo Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy that his parents made. Sure enough, yesterday we found a bag in the music room with three portions of apple pan dowdy that 4^thgrade Celina made for James, Sofia and myself. This level of attention and kindness and generosity and appreciation that the school cultivates is an alternate universe to what the clown car of public figures in power offer to us with their mean-spiritedness, greed, indifference to decency and kindness. 

 

I, for one, am grateful. May The San Francisco School and all like-minded and large-hearted schools and institutions continue to prosper forever!

PS I see I repeat myself, having mentioned some of this in the Lobster post. Oh well. It's worth repeating!